The Liquidators and the Lettish Working-Class Movement

Published:Put PravdyNo. 62, April 16, 1914.

      Published according to the text inPut Pravdy.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 20,

      pages239-241.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Joe FinebergTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Therecent decision of all organised Lettish workers,
condemning the liquidators and supporting the Marxist line, struck a
decisive blow at the “August bloc”, by showing that sooner or later all
proletarian elements will break with the liquidators.Severnaya
Rabochaya Gazetais doing its utmost to explain away this unpleasant
fact. This rather difficult job has been tackled by L. M. and F. D.

Weshall not trouble to reply to the petty wrangling which the
liquidators have started The only aspect of the matter we consider
important is that which has organisational and political significance.

Theliquidators say: True, the Lettish Marxists have withdrawn from the
“August bloc”, but they have not joined the “Leninists”.

Quiteright, gentlemen! The Lettish Marxists have indeed remainedneutral. In our very first articles concerning the Lettish
decisions, we said that the Letts had takenonly the first step,
that, generally speaking, they had acted likeconciliators.[1]

Buthave the liquidators considered what follows from this?

Ifthe Letts are really conciliators, if they advocate unity at any
price, and if they are neutral in the organisational conflict, then the
political appraisal of liquidationism made by the conciliatory Lettish
Marxistsis a still more telling blow at the liquidators.

Fromthe political Aspect, this appraisal is quite clear and
straightforward. The Lettish workers have emphatically endorsed the old
decision thatliquidationism is a manifestationof bourgeois influence on the proletariat. They have declared that
unity with the liquidators means becoming “ideologically and politically
dependent upon the liquidators”.

Yes,Messrs. L.M. and F.D., the Letts have indeed remained neutral;
they have not yet abandoned “conciliatory” hopes; they have not yet drawn
all the practical conclusions from the stand they took; they have given too
lenient treatment to the groups which defend you. But it was precisely
these lenient and neutral people who told you that your liquidationist line
expressed only the influence of thebourgeoisieon the backward
sections of the workers.

Theludicrous muddle the liquidators have got themselves info in
appraising the Lettish decisions can be seen from the articles published inZeit, a newspaper of the Jewish liquidators. Here Mr. Yonov tells
us in verbose articles that “the Lettish comrades do not stand for a
split; on the contrary, they strongly oppose such tactics”.

Thesame writer goes on to say that “the general spirit of the
resolution [of the Letts] is beyond all doubt the Leninist spirit. It [the
resolution] is based on hostility towards liquidationism, on recognition of
the need to combat it” (ZeitNo. 14).

Agreeamong yourselves, liquidators, and say either one thing or the
other.

Theliquidators hope that the Letts will yet take astep
backward—toliquidationism. We hope that they will take a step
forward, to the position of the Russian Marxists. Time will show whose
hopes will be justified. We calmly leave that to the course of the Lettish
and of the entire Russian working-class movement. For the present, one
thing has been achieved: the Letts have dealt a mortal blow at the “August
bloc” and recognised that liquidationism is a bourgeois trend.

Afew words about the Letts’ decision concerning the split in the
Social-Democratic group in the Duma. The six liquidator deputies have not
given a straightforward answer to the question as to whether they accept
the terms of the Letts. With Mr. F. D.’s assistance, they are trying to
“pull the wool over our eyes”, as the saying goes. However, they will not
succeed.

Lookat Mr. F. D.’s “arguments”. Confronted with the 1908 decision
(which the Lettsendorsed) against amalgamation with the Jagiello
party, he replies by stating that the Social-Democratic group in the Second
Duma accepted ... the Lithuanian Social-Democrats. The “slight”
difference here is merely that Russia’s Marxists resolved on more than one
occasion toamalgamatewith the Lithuanians, butnot to
amalgamatewith the P.S.P., because that party isnotMarxist. The difference is that the Lithuanian deputies were returned to
the Duma with the full support of all the local Social-Democrats, whereas
Jagiello was electedin the teeth of oppositionfrom the Polish
Social-Democrats,in the teeth of oppositionfrom the majority of
the worker electors.

TheLetts made it a condition of unity that the all-Russia decisions of
1908 and 1910 condemning liquidationism as abourgeoistrend
should be recognised. Does the Chkheidze group accept this condition? What
has Mr. F. D., who defends this group, to say about this? Only that “lack
of space prevents us [i. e., him] from dealing” with these all Russia
decisions.

Verywell, we shall wait untilSevernaya Rabochaya Gazetafinds more space in which to say, at last, what its attitude is towards the
1908 and 1910 decisions of the entire Marxist body, which recognised
liquidationism as a bourgeois trend.

Asfor the workers, they will undoubtedly draw their own conclusions
from the liquidators’ shuffling, and realise that these people are dead to
the cause of Marxism.

[1]Seepp. 177–81 of this volume.—Ed.